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"Hundreds of these airships escaped to Hawaii, and not only did they
bring the plague with them, but they found the plague already there
before them. This we learned by the dispatches, until all order in San
Francisco vanished, and there were no operators left at their posts to
receive or send. It was amazing, astounding, this loss of
communication with the world. It was exactly as if the world had
ceased, been blotted out. For sixty years that world has no longer
existed for me. I know there must be such places as New York,
Europe, Asia, and Africa; but not one word has been heard of
them-not in sixty years. With the coming of the Scarlet Death the
world fell apart, absolutely, irretrievably. Ten thousand years of
culture and civilization paeced in the twinkling of an eye, 'lapsed like
foam.'

"I was telling about the airships of the rich. They carried the plague
with them and no matter where they fled, they died. I never
encountered but one survivor of any of them--Mungerson. He was
afterwards a Santa Rosan, and he married my eldest daughter. He
came into the tribe eight years after the plague. He was then nineteen
years old, and he was compelled to wait twelve years more before he
could marry. You see, there were no unmarried women, and some of
the older daughters of the Santa Rosans were already bespoken. So he
was forced to wait until my Mary had grown to sixteen years. It was
his son, Gimp-Leg, who was killed last year by the mountain lion.

"Mungerson was eleven years old at the time of the plague. His father
was one of the Industrial Magnates, a very wealthy, powerful man.
It was on his airship, the Condor, that they were fleeing, with all the
family, for the wilds of British Columbia, which is far to the north of
here. But there was some accident, and they were wrecked near
Mount Shasta. You have heard of that mountain. It is far to the north.
The plague broke out amongst them, and this boy of eleven was the
only survivor. For eight years he was alone, wandering over a
deserted land and looking vainly for his own kind. And at last,
travelling south, he picked up with us, the Santa Rosans.

"But I am ahead of my story. When the great exodus from the cities
around San Francisco Bay began, and while the telephones were still
working, I talked with my brother. I told him this flight from the cities
was insanity, that there were no symptoms of the plague in me, and
that the thing for us to do was to isolate ourselves and our relatives in
some safe place. We decided on the Chemistry Building, at the
university, and we planned to lay in a supply of provisions, and by
force of arms to prevent any other persons from forcing their presence
upon us after we had retired to our refuge.